Launching alone. Marketing it alone.
The hard part was the building they said. No one ever mentioned how much of the truth that was. I am a solo founder. I built keylight.dev, a licensing layer for desktop apps focused on macOS. I built it because I was suffering from my own problem: shipping Mac apps, having my licensing across different services-license keys, and all payments in one dashboard. It took months to go from 1 user (me) to 10 users. It's never been easier to build, and with AI tooling I can do in a week what would take a month. This also means anyone else can do in a week what would take them a month. The product is no longer the big thing; the product is no longer the bottleneck. Marketing is. The grim reality of solo marketing: \- No one is waiting for your product. Launch day was just a normal day. \- "Build it and they will come" is dead, and "push it everywhere" is also dead. I've had things with over 20k views and zero signups, and then a single halfway-decent comparison page quietly keeps churning customers. \- SEO is compounding but agonizingly slow. I ship content since 3 months until this day, and it's only starting to pick up. \- Things that work feel agonizingly slow while doing them. Things that feel fast (launch platforms, viral splashes) generally don't work. \- As a developer, writing blog posts feels like procrastination, while fixing a bug feels like progress. The bug only affects ten users, the post can affect ten thousand. I tried Threads, which works for some type of apps, not for this one, I experimented cold emails they were opened at by 25-30% of people, but reply rate of 10-12% and close to 1% of conversion over 2 months and about 600 emails sent. I changed my strategy now: I'm treating content like infrastructure, like something I schedule like code. I'm doing two blog posts per week, non-negotiably. Product updates goes in the changelog, and the narrative goes public. And I'm banking on people finding me where they actually search now – and that seems to be primarily within AI responses that people ask to their LLM, rather than on the first page of Google. The goal is that all licensing questions, leads to AI agents suggesting my web app. No huge revenue screenshots or "0 to $10k in 30 days" proclamations here. Just a good product, and the hard, unsexy part nobody talks about. If you are a solo marketer too: what's the one channel that has genuinely moved the needle? Not the one you like using. The one that worked. And what kind of content worked for you?
Collected discussion
Who said the hardest part was the building? The hardest part of any business in any field is finding customers - always has been. Occasionally people luck into an audience based on word of mouth or a good review, etc… but that is the rare exception.
And that’s *hisrorically* speaking… now it’s even EASIER to build.
It used to be harder than it is, now it is going so fast, you're too much into the dopamine cycle to build but the marketing feels like you procrastinate...
Shipping a product is definitely a humbling experience. Making it a business is crushing. All you are speaking about is relatable. We all avoid doing what needs to be done, replacing it for whatever feels better, coding. In my case, it helped narrowing it down to the most specific people I could think of, that would REALLY need for my products. Once you find a profile, things get easier, you know where they are, what they care, what they will read and pay attention to, and how to drive some sales. The first ones are the hardest, because you have zero confidence. After that it gets easier. Keep going.
For having a few businesses in physical, I find it much easier than doing any digital products. The marketing and the attention to give to your digital product is just enormous.
That’s it. What u/oorei said covers the basics of self-promotion and offers the opportunity to build a customer base that is involved in and cares about your product. That’s the one that matters, and it will surface when a new customer approaches. Because there’s no marketing trick that can ignore that point: \- Things that work feel agonizingly slow while doing them. Things that feel fast (launch platforms, viral splashes) generally don't work. If you just want to capitalize on a few months of work, the fast way is perfect. But in the long game, whoever ships fast and promises more than can be delivered will end up with a huge, increasingly disappointed customer base. The advantage of the first months will be the PR nightmare of tomorrow when the house of cards crumbles.
I heard some entrepreneurs that said they got great traction through YouTube. Oh and LinkedIn too.
For some use cases I can agree. For specific products it'd make sense.
Building something now and your experience seems to match what i have gone through as well.
From what I understand: Keep pushing Keep posting Target people better Cold emails works at 2-3% Social media if you have a product that looks good
What has an LLM told you to do - there must be evolving strategies
the hardest part is marketing. = (
No doubt that distribution is the real problem 😄 I also had the same experience launching 4 projects in the last year... You're not alone!
building is easier than ever now. it's the marketing and providing something of value is what people are looking for.
even if you have something of value to other, convince them to even try it is not easy ... also you compete with all other things that take their time and attention
You already answered your own question: a single halfway-decent comparison page quietly keeps churning customers That's your channel. Comparison and "alternative to X" pages convert because they catch people at the bottom of the funnel: someone searching "keylight vs [competitor]" or "[competitor] alternative" already has intent and a card out. 20k views from a viral splash is curiosity. One comparison-page reader is a buyer. So go build a page for every competitor and every adjacent tool people might be migrating from. That's the unsexy compounding work that actually pays, and it's higher leverage than two narrative blog posts a week. On the AI-search bet: directionally right, but it's not a separate channel. LLMs mostly surface what already ranks and gets cited. The comparison/SEO content that wins Google is the same thing that gets you into AI answers. Same work, second payoff. Don't build a whole strategy around "optimize for LLMs" as if it's distinct from the SEO you're already doing. Cold email at 600 sends over 2 months was never going to move a dev-tools product anyway. Kill it and put that time into the comparison pages.
try my signalhunt. i posted it here. i’m in the same boat. still it’s work, make no mistake
You are not alone, and yes is hard!
Distribution is indeed hard. I built a web app that I pushed out and it definitely is difficult. I am going to be building iOS and macOS apps for it too at some point. I decided to dip my toes in the finance sector and it's so crowded.
I'm afraid most fields are, you might just not know before you get into it. I had no idea how many time trackers existed
This matches my experience and honestly I'm still trying new approaches and searching for what will work. I've had the same tendency to focus on building over marketing, and am working much more actively this time around to make up for that deficit, but having just done an app launch to the sound of relative crickets I'm humbled by how much I have yet to learn and my appreciation for the challenge of it all is certainly renewed! There are so many ways one can invest one's time as an indie developer, it's hard to know which will be effective. Trying a variety of things with results that can be measured seems like the best advice. Thus far, I've tried to cultivate organic growth through posts to my small X following, and emailing potential reviewers. The next steps I'm considering include trying paid ads (which many have reported aren't very effective, matching my past experience, but maybe the landscape has changed enough to warrant another try), and starting a consistent YouTube presence, which I've been wanting to do anyway to explore ideas about building, engineering, and technology that I think would be interesting and might give me an effective place to gently promote my other work. Apple choosing to briefly feature my first app on the Mac App Store front page many years ago was responsible for my greatest blip of success, but I'm sure getting that placement is harder than ever to replicate now amid today's huge pool of worthy apps, and after that 1 or 2 week honeymoon ended the sales quickly faded. The bit of reassurance I can at least take from that is that maybe my ideas are actually halfway good, and it's mainly a matter of getting them in front of the right audience. Your advice about "treating content like infrastructure" rings true and I'm going to give it a serious try. Thank you for this post!
Has anyone here had success with gauging interest in advance of building, by driving traffic to product-description landing pages with email signups? I’ve seen this practice recommended, but it feels disingenuous to me and I don’t want to earn a reputation for dealing in vaporware. Am I engaging in self-sabotage by shying away from this potential market-probing technique?
I think I remember Jeff Atwood talking about this as the Stalagmite process. They slowly build over time with the drip, drip, drip. And it's the same with sales and marketing. In the way of offering advice, one thing that has worked well for us is making the most of our existing customers. Either getting testimonials for social proof or actively asking them for referrals. It feels weird to ask, but one advantage of having fewer customers is that you can speak to them all. Don't be afraid to ask, "Do you know anyone else who would find this useful, and would you be ok referring us?"
I’ve noticed that videos seem to grab people's attention much better than photos. Even though it didn't lead to actual sales, a video post I made on Threads got about 40 times more views than a photo post - we're talking 20,000 views compared to just 500. Granted, the products I was promoting were different, but it really made me realize how important it is to make good videos.
when you try to bootstrap something solo, make sure to focus on the short-term channels. I'd say public/private communities and 1:1 DMs in your network (X, Linkedin) is the core. Use MPs like AppSumo for LTD campaigns. If you have some money to inverst - try email outreach but very carefully and with clear ICP and GOOD promo in place. Also, I'd try micro UGC/influencers across tok or other relevant platforms. I'm skeptical about SEO in the beggining, especially now, in this chaos of AI distribution